Pi Day

Party Time for Math Fans!

by Sarah Kilmurry and Jennifer Isom-Backer

February 18, 2010

If there was just one day that screams math party, March 14 would have to be it however due to no school our party will be on the 11th. Coincidentally, March 14 is also Albert Einstein's birthday, which offers math lovers the chance to discuss famous discoveries that have been proved through mathematics.

Pi Day is not only a day to celebrate math, it also recognizes the historical progress of our universal language of mathematics. Pi dates back more than 4,000 years, when it was used by the Babylonians and Egyptians. In the third and fourth centuries B.C., great thinkers such as Archimedes, Ptolemy and Euclid came up with their own estimates and proofs. Today, supercomputers are able to estimate pi with precision to over a trillion digits.

The first recognized Pi Day celebration was held March 14, 1988, at the San Francisco Exploratorium, where the staff and public marched around in a circle and ate fruit pies. Now, many organizations, countless websites and thousands of classrooms host celebrations. Pi enthusiasts in the math community take pride in memorizing pi and coming up with higher estimates of its digits.

We are celebrating Pi Day in our classrooms by incorporating the following activities:

1. Write a poem about pi.

2. Sing "American Pi" adapted to "American Pie" by Don McLean.

3. Use pi to compare volumes.

4. Learn about the history of pi.

5. Stand in a circle to create pi!

6. Pi literature read aloud (Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi: A Math Adventure).

7. Find out who holds the current record for most digits memorized and practice memorizing

the digits of pi.

8. Convert things into pi (i.e., what is your pi age?)

9. Have a Pi Day party with pi-zza, pi-e, and pi-neapple juice, and don't forget a pi- ñanta.

10. Tattoos of Pi